My Birthday is Almost Over

Okay so my birthday was actually way back in April but I am still enjoying one of my presents.  When asked what I wanted for my birthday I really had no idea.  Then I decided that maybe some vouchers for our new LYS Holland Road Yarn Company would be good because as mentioned yesterday I have been more or less on a yarn diet while on maternity leave.  You cannot imagine how excited I was to find out that I had a rather large stash of vouchers to spend and now that I have almost run out of credit I thought I would show off what I have purchased.  

My first purchase was a couple of days after my birthday and I came home with the fabulous book of Sock yarn One-Skein Wonders and we all know I have plenty of skeins of sock yarn that I need inspiration for, plus the gorgeous Chloe cardigan pattern by Alana Dakos of Never Not Knitting to make for Miss M.

Next up was some Cascade Superwash in a gorgeous aqua color that I needed for a test knit I was doing for Miss M.  And while I was there Tash managed to twist my arm to take home a skein of devine Fyberspates Scrumptious Lace in the Cherry colourway.

The Cascade became this...

And the Scrumptious Lace will either become one of these patterns for me :-)

Scrumptious Lace in Cherry

Laar by Gudrun Johnston

Wray by Lily Kate France

My next purchase was more Fyberspates Scrumptious this time in Sport weight in Sky colourway.  I adore this yarn, it is a merino/silk blend and so soft with a lovely sheen to it.  I also grabbed some stitch markers in case you were wondering what else was in the picture.

The Sky Scrumptious I think will one day turn into one of these.

Pioneer by kBomb

Finally I have splurged a bit since Tash started stocking buttons by Buttons By Benji, I love them so much.

And I used some of them on this bolero for Miss M.

Now who could think of a more awesome birthday present than that?

Budding Artist

For months now Mr A has been pretty obsessed with all things art and craft.  He has a large box that we keep stocked with paper, pencils, crayons, felt pens, stickers, foam shapes, glue, scissors etc and he will set himself up a wee work station on the kitchen table and keep entertained for hours.
Lately he has mainly been drawing with felt pens and crayons and the details that have come into his drawings of late I find quite astonishing (although I could be somewhat biased;-)).  Here are a few samples of pictures he has produced over the last couple of days.

Can you spot the red flower tree, the person running, a pig with a very long curly tail, the sun, moon, stars, a house and letterbox, a rabbit, rain, a street light and the wonder pets in their flyboat?

I love the foam shape numbers on the letter box int his one and I was told I had to take a picture of this because it's for the Argentina flag on it.  Mr A is also a bit obsessed with flags at the moment since there are so many about with the Rugby World Cup on.

This one has a house with rain on the windows (it was raining when he drew this) and a front and back door, a plant that belongs to the person in the house, someone running and someone walking, a snowman wearing a fluffy scarf, flax plants, a sun, moon, clouds, rain and snow, a pig in the mud and some letters for decoration.
He calls these his "whole wide world" pictures but we have explained to him they are actually called landscapes, in the loosest sense of the term.
Finally there is this picture of a dog (or an artists impression of one) that he drew and then colored in.

Not too bad for a wee boy, and he thought it was the best thing ever when I bought him a box of 30 felt pens yesterday, he can't get over how many different colors he has to play with now :-)  I was told at bed time last night that he was going to draw pictures all day today because if you do that you are a real artist.

Has anyone got any suggestions of what to do with the mountains of pictures he is producing.  He puts so much effort into them I feel terrible throwing them away but we have way too many to keep.

Yarn Diet Fail

Hello my name is Alison and I am addicted to buying yarn :-)  Okay so that's not actually always true, I go through phases of being addicted to buying fabric instead, but yarn is my main downfall.  However while I was on maternity leave my yarn budget was pretty much zero and I actually found it easier than I thought to stick to my yarn diet.  I had a couple of wobbles early on when I 'needed' to increase the proportion of 'girly' yarn in stash after Miss M was born, and have fallen for a couple of cheap destash purchases but recently I have well and truly fallen off the wagon.

Here are the goodies that have arrived in my mail box over the last 6-8 weeks, which in my defense is basically since I started work again (I had to celebrate somehow).
First is my one and only Co-op purchase for the year, so I've been good in that respect.  This is from Lollytree yarn and the colourway is BFF with mid pink trim.

I'm not sure what that will become yet but possibly a Teacher's Pet for Miss M next autumn/winter.

Then I just may have been tempted by the fabulous Morag of Vintage Purls when she destashed the last of her non-superwash yarn.  Considering how often I used to purchase from Morag's weekly updates, believe me this is me being good :-)

I have no idea what any of this will turn into.  I have actually already destashed a couple of these that I knew I wouldn't use and some of it at least will turn into socks for me eventually.  Amongst that lot are both the foreground and background colors for this Bug Out sock pattern which is pretty cool.

via

Next is two skeins of absolutely devine Old Maiden Aunt Merino/cashmere/nylon 4ply in colourway Derelict Daughter.

I already had one skein of this from the OMA yarn club I did a couple of years ago and now with two extra skeins I am dreaming of making myself a carry of some sort and wrapping myself in it's softness.  Maybe one of these patterns? What do you think?

Elphaba Pullover

Vanadium

Making Waves Cardigan

Some Three Irish Girls Springvale Super Merino, worsted weight in colourway Megan, purchased from destash.

And finally I fell for a destash from a friend and now have a whole stack of Bella Baby Layette which is a lovely soft merino/bamboo yarn which will be great for summer knits for Miss M.

See I told you I've fallen off the wagon, just as well there aren't any health risks I know of from having too much yarn.  My disclaimer to this post is that I am still on track to finish the year with less yarn than I started :-)

After The Rain

Spring is well and truely here and with it the rain.  It feels like we have had rain for ages now but in reality it has probably just been on and off (more on than off) for the last couple of weeks or so.  Today I took advantage of a break in the weather to put some washing on the line and the kidlets came outside to get some fresh air and have a run around.  Until recently I would have strapped Miss M in the buggy so I knew where she was but lately she has become a lot more able at playing about and loves her time sharing Mr A's ride on bike and car.
The one difference after the rain today was that we had puddles.  I think this was Miss M's first experience of puddle jumping (more stomping in her case) and the pictures say it all really, you just can't hear the squeals of delight.

Looks like fun

Splish splash

Squeals of delight

I've had enough of this game now, off to explore.



FO Whispering Blackbirds

This is the carry I was referring to here and yes it is done, worn several times already and I totally love it :-)

First of all the story behind this goes back a long long way.  In fact it goes back to 2009, the year I knitted my first ever socks

which in turn led to my year of buying sock yarn.  It was also the year that we took Mr A back to Scotland to visit some very special places and people.

While I was in Scotland I really wanted to buy some special yarn, preferably hand-dyed sock yarn, as a souvenir of our trip for me.  Unfortunately it wasn't until a few weeks after we returned to NZ that I discovered Old Maiden Aunt yarns which has since become a firm favorite of mine.  I adore all of the yarn Lilith produces and next time we are in Scotland I am definitely going to visit her studio and make sure I have some money $$ put aside for some stash enhancement.
Anyway 2009 was also the "Year of the Homecoming" in Scotland and Lilith's color range for that year was called the Homecoming collection.  I may have got a little nostalgic and collected a few of the beautiful yarns from that collection

Ae Fond Kiss

Fraoch - Heather

Dreich

Lon-Dubh

Red Red Rose

I purchased two skeins of the Lon-Dubh (blackbird) and immediately started my Whisper Cardigan by Hannah Fettig.  This is where things started to go astray, first of all I decided I may be cutting it fine with just two skeins as I intended to add a lot of length to the body of the original pattern, then I had gifts to knit and this got put aside. When my third skein arrived it was a lot darker than the original two and the thought of getting my head around alternating skeins meant that this wee baby stayed in hibernation even longer.  Then it was winter, I was pregnant and completely lost my will to knit, it was summer again but I had a newborn to look after...etc etc.  Finally about 3 weeks ago I decided it was time for this to come out of retirement and get finished!
To my surprise I had nearly finished the sleeves/back which I got out of my first skein of yarn with just a bit left over.  Then once I made myself sit down and pick up all the stitches for the ribbing it was all go.  I am so pleased I have finished this now and I can see it will get a lot of wear through spring/summer.  The ribbing and the body are still slightly darker than the sleeves/back due to alternating the darker skein in but I don't think it is that noticeable and it certainly isn't a problem.  With the wonder of hindsight I now know I would have just squeaked the whole thing out of the two original skeins but never mind.
So here it is my Whispering Blackbirds.

And a couple of quick modeled pics taken by Mr A, I will have to try and get better ones soon.

A note of thanks has to go to my knitting group who constantly told me to shut up and keep knitting as I sat complaining of the seemingly endless ribbing, you were right it was all worth it in the end :-)

FO Summer Days test.

Recently I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to test knit once again for the fabulous designer Elena Nodel.  This time it was a gorgeous wee bolero carry for Miss M called Summer Days.  I made Miss M the 19 inch size and got it out of just under 50g of 4ply yarn.  This pattern is actually written for a sport weight yarn but I got gauge with Jolly Jumbuck merino/cashmere/nylon which is a 'plumpish' 4ply.
I don't think there is anything I don't love about this knit.  The construction is fabulous, the broken rib gives a lovely fit and the wee puff sleeves are too cute for words.  I was also thrilled to find the perfect buttons from Buttons by Benji at my LYS HRYC.

And on the girl herself.